Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/17

xi Or elevates the Mind, intent to weigh

The good and evil of our mortal state.

—To these emotions, whencesoe'er they come,

Whether from breath of outward circumstance,

Or from the Soul—an impulse to herself,

I would give utterance in numerous Verse.

—Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love, and Hope—

And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith;

Of blessed consolations in distress;

Of moral strength, and intellectual power;

Of joy in widest commonalty spread;

Of the individual Mind that keeps her own

Inviolate retirement, subject there

To Conscience only, and the law supreme

Of that Intelligence which governs all;

I sing:—"fit audience let me find though few!"

So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the Bard,

Holiest of Men.—Urania, I shall need

Thy guidance, or a greater Muse, if such

Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven!

For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink

Deep—and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds

To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil.

All strength—all terror, single or in bands,

That ever was put forth in personal form;

Jehovah—with his thunder, and the choir

Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones,

I pass them, unalarmed. Not Chaos, not The darkest pit of lowest Erebus,